Keith Douglas

Synopsis

Keith Douglas by Keith Douglas

In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our literature. Keith Douglas (1920-1944) began writing when he was at school at Christ's Hospital School, London, continued at Oxford, and thereafter in the army and in the Middle East. By the time he was killed in Normandy, aged only twenty-four, in June 1944, he had achieved a body of work that singled him out as the most brilliant and promising English poet of the Second World War. The present pioneering selection of Keith Douglas's work, by Ted Hughes, was first published in 1964.

Reviews

Each poem turns out to be an exercise [and] whatever they are, these 'exercisesdisplay

[the poet's] striving towards and, briefly, perfecting the qualities we value in him: the incisive, nimble glance, the uniquely tempered music, the simple, point-blank, bull's-eye statement, the tensile delicacy. --Ted Hughes, from his Introduction Ted did a beautiful [BBC radio] program on a marvelous young British poet, Keith Douglas, killed in the last war... Both of us mourn this poet immensely and feel he would have been like a lovely big brother to us. --from a letter Sylvia Plath wrote to her mother in June 1962 Each poem turns out to be an exercise [and] whatever they are, these 'exercisesdisplay

[the poet's] striving towards and, briefly, perfecting the qualities we value in him: the incisive, nimble glance, the uniquely tempered music, the simple, point-blank, bull's-eye statement, the tensile delicacy. Ted Hughes, from his Introduction Ted did a beautiful [BBC radio] program on a marvelous young British poet, Keith Douglas, killed in the last war... Both of us mourn this poet immensely and feel he would have been like a lovely big brother to us. from a letter Sylvia Plath wrote to her mother in June 1962 Each poem turns out to be an exercise [and] whatever they are, these 'exercisesdisplay

[the poet's] striving towards and, briefly, perfecting the qualities we value in him: the incisive, nimble glance, the uniquely tempered music, the simple, point-blank, bull's-eye statement, the tensile delicacy. Ted Hughes, from his Introduction Ted did a beautiful [BBC radio] program on a marvelous young British poet, Keith Douglas, killed in the last war... Both of us mourn this poet immensely and feel he would have been like a lovely big brother to us. from a letter Sylvia Plath wrote to her mother in June 1962

Each poem turns out to be an exercise [and] whatever they are, these 'exercisesdisplay

[the poet's] striving towards and, briefly, perfecting the qualities we value in him: the incisive, nimble glance, the uniquely tempered music, the simple, point-blank, bull's-eye statement, the tensile delicacy. --Ted Hughes, from his Introduction Ted did a beautiful [BBC radio] program on a marvelous young British poet, Keith Douglas, killed in the last war... Both of us mourn this poet immensely and feel he would have been like a lovely big brother to us. --from a letter Sylvia Plath wrote to her mother in June 1962 Each poem turns out to be an exercise [and] whatever they are, these 'exercisesdisplay

[the poet's] striving towards and, briefly, perfecting the qualities we value in him: the incisive, nimble glance, the uniquely tempered music, the simple, point-blank, bull's-eye statement, the tensile delicacy. -Ted Hughes, from his Introduction Ted did a beautiful [BBC radio] program on a marvelous young British poet, Keith Douglas, killed in the last war... Both of us mourn this poet immensely and feel he would have been like a lovely big brother to us. -from a letter Sylvia Plath wrote to her mother in June 1962

About the Author

Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was born in Yorkshire. His first book, The Hawk in the Rain, was published in 1957 by Faber and Faber and was followed by many volumes of poetry and prose for adults and children. He received the Whitbread Book of the Year for two consecutive years for his last published collections of poetry, Tales from Ovid (1997) and Birthday Letters (1998). He was Poet Laureate from 1984, and in 1998 he was appointed to the Order of Merit.